In framing a national policy of peace for the United States, we must constantly and clearly draw the line of distinction between the deep-seated original causes of war, and causes which are secondary, or merely precipitating incidents.
The assassination of the Austrian Archduke in Sarajevo precipitated the present war, but it was not the cause of the war.
Fundamentally, that cause was the check imposed by other nations on the expansion of the German Empire. The necessity for that expansion resulted from the rapid increase in the population, trade, and national wealth of Germany.
The same problem faces the United States with reference to Japan and we cannot evade it by any scheme for arbitration or disarmament. We must squarely face and solve the economic problems that lie at the bottom of all possible conflict between this nation and Japan.
A lighted match may be thrown into a keg of gunpowder and an explosion result. It might be said that the match caused the explosion. In one sense it did--_but it was not the match that exploded_.
And gunpowder must be protected against matches, if explosions are to be avoided. So with national controversies. The economic causes must be controlled, and conflict avoided by action taken long in advance of a condition of actual controversy.
In our dealings with Japan, as will be shown hereafter, we are sitting on an open keg of gunpowder, lighting matches apparently without the remotest idea of the danger, or of the way to eliminate it.
But the situation on the Pacific Coast with reference to Japan is not the first instance of similar risks that have been run with most appalling losses as a consequence.
The danger of an earthquake in San Francisco was known to everybody. Likewise it must have been known, if the slightest thought had been given to it, that an earthquake might disrupt the water system of the city and make it impossible to quench a fire that might be started by an earthquake.
As San Francisco is now heedless of the need for a policy that will really settle the Japanese trouble, instead of aggravating it, so she was heedless of the earthquake danger. That heedlessness cost the city $300,000,000 in entirely unnecessary damage caused by fire. San Francisco was destroyed by fire, not by the earthquake. The earthquake was unavoidable, the fire was wholly preventable.